Photo: Kirk Penton

The way things have been going in the Kelowna housing market lately, the former Central Okanagan head of the Canadian Home Builders' Association figured it would be all doom and gloom when an economist delivered the forecast for the next year and a half on Thursday.

“It wasn’t as bad a forecast as I anticipated,” Ray Wynsouw said.

“We’re definitely on a downtrend, and from a CHBA perspective we’re certainly looking at that from all three levels of government. We’ve had the stress test, we’ve had the speculation tax, the step code that’s coming into play, and all these things have an effect on what we do.”

Taylor Pardy, a senior economic analyst with the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation, delivered the forecast at Coast Capri Hotel, and said the recent downturn in home sales and construction is nowhere near what happened in 2008, when the global financial crisis struck.

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